I learned to read at three as well, but I had a dedicated teacher at home that devoted time everyday to reading to me and giving me lessons. So yes, surprising that a child that young could read without a parental figure devoting energy to the matter, let alone not even being aware that the child was learning at all.

Gabriel it took all of one fifteen minute lesson when he was four, after he knew by heart all of the letters and the sounds they made. We were waiting for an appointment and he was bored so I wrote a few simple words, thinking I'd start teaching him a bit more than just the individual letters, then sentences explaining to blend the sounds together and it clicked instantly, before we got out of the car he had learned more complex letter combinations, like sh and th and tion and the different phonics between how to know vowel combinations. It was amazing.

That's soooooo cool, I would be over the moon if my kid could read when they're 3, they did good there.
I was probably 4, I went to a private school but it closed down and when I left when I was about 5 and had to go to normal school I'd completed their whole comprehension/English curriculum, for real. We all had. One girl from the private school was there with me and for English we were just allowed to read whatever we wanted in another room and do cross stitch and stuff.

In third grade my teacher stuck me in one of the middle reading groups, based purely on my out loud reading ability. She didn't test my actual comprehension at all.

I remember being constantly frustrated with the other kids in my group.

But then we got to name our own reading groups, and all the other groups picked names like "The Cheetahs" and "The Dolphins" and other attempts at badass or cool names. My group settled on "The Fleas", so that made things a little better.

Then, when I started Kindergarten, they used to take me out of class into the firstgraders room during their reading lessons. That only lasted a little while because it turned out that I was beyond them. Then they took me to the school's library for two hours a day and turned me loose. In the end, the librarian put me to work, shelving and organizing books and checking books in and out for the older kids.

Have I told y'all about the little girl my sister used to nanny? Her name was Maren and at two years old she was speaking in full sentences. She would say things like "I think I'd like to take a nap now." Six months before that she knew who was calling my sister by the ringtone. She associated mornings with my sister and I talking on the phone. If we didn't talk Maren would say, "Call Melody?"

One day, I'm not sure how old she was at this point, she said to my sister, "I like Melody because her name starts with the same letter at mine." I'm pretty sure she had never seen my name written down.

This kid was a genius and the saddest thing was the parents didn't even have her in a gifted preschool. Hopefully she has teachers who recognize how smart she is very soon and push her parents to put her in a special program.

I've had my parents and grandparents forget about my birthday on several occasions. I learned not to give a fuck anymore. The first time it happened I turned 16...I thought I was being punked into feeling like I was gonna get trapped in a real life 16 candles moment. Luckily my mom called me a little after dropping me off to wish me a happy birthday and apologized for forgetting.

Me and my daughter talking after dinner...
me:We probably have a lot of mannerisms that are similar, that we do all the time.
g:Yeah we probably don't even know it.
me:'Cause I'm cool, and I'm hip, and I'm jive turkey cool! You want to be just like me. *snapping fingers to a beat*
g:I'm going to be just like you, so sad. hahhaha!

Her: He looks pretty old.
Me: Yeah he aged poorly. Well, as poorly as Ryan Gosling could, which isn't poorly at all.
Her: Would you stop, that is so annoying.
Me: I can't help it, look at him.
Her: I wish you were Ryan Gosling.
Me: So do i.

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